


If You Asked

by lunchinanelevator



Category: The Fall (TV 2013)
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-16 23:24:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9294296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunchinanelevator/pseuds/lunchinanelevator
Summary: Missing scene from S3E6. Tanya finds out what happened to Stella.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thought I'd come visit a new fandom for a little while.

Tanya will later consider it ironic that she receives the alert while she’s in London. She’s just about to give a presentation on cold cases at a national conference of forensic pathology. There’s been no further work needed from her department on the Spector case for a while now, and she had accepted this invitation to give a talk long before she even heard of the Belfast Strangler; even Tom Stagg had insisted she go, that Rose would still be recovering when she returned and he would send her regular email updates. She has of course received regular email updates on the case as well, but there’s still time before any depositions or any trial. Nor had she realized how much she needed to get away until she did so.

She scans the alert quickly; now that the Belfast Strangler’s been caught, such messages have most often been about petty inter-office politics, the public face of the department, which are of no concern to those who work in the morgue as far as Tanya’s concerned. But she catches the words “DS Gibson,” and then she goes back and reads the full alert, slowly, bracing herself against a wall as she does. Then she has to sit and read it again, making certain that she has the ending right. 

A tap hits her shoulder and she looks up. “Dr. Reed-Smith?” says a young man. “We’re ready to begin.”

The presentation is a successful blur. Afterwards she shakes hands with colleagues, with people she’s never met and will never see again, with people whose articles she’s read and whose methods she’s utilized in the morgue, all the time feeling her phone pressed against her thigh. She’s caught between desperation for further information and not wanting to know, quite, how bad it is. She doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t want to talk to anyone else, and finally, almost against her will, she steps into the hallway and calls.

“Gibson,” says the dry voice. Tanya’s surprised at the way relief thickens her throat. She doesn’t know what she thought she would hear.

“It’s Reed-Smith,” she says, finally working the words out.

“Hello.”

Tanya again tries to form her mouth around all the things she wants to ask, but in the end all she manages is, “Can I—can I see you?”

“To be honest, I’m not quite sure,” says Stella. “Half of my face—I’ve no idea what I look like. You might not be able to see me beneath it all.” Her tone says that she thinks it’s a joke, or wants it to be, but Tanya doesn’t laugh or say anything, and the silence on the phone pools between them.

“Royal Victoria?” Tanya asks.

“Yes,” says Stella. “Hold a moment—” There’s a muffled sound at Stella’s end, someone talking to someone. Then Stella’s voice is distinct again. “Floor eight.”

There are no flights for several hours; Tanya schedules herself onto the last plane of the day. The wait at the airport is painful, the hour-long flight endless, and Tanya’s chewing her nails by the time she gets out of the taxi. She’s agitated that her bike is parked at home; a ride would certainly have helped.

Because she knows most of the administration at Royal Victoria, she gets the room number quickly even at this hour, but she shakes a little as she walks down the hall. She knocks on a set of double doors with Plexiglas windows, through which she can see the vague blurred shape of the woman she knows and another form beside it.

“Come in.” The dry voice again, interrupting a man’s voice that drones quietly beneath it.

Stella’s lying nearly flat in a hospital cot with a curly-haired white doctor, a middle-aged man, sitting in a chair to her left. He stands up immediately when Tanya comes in. “Your friend?” he says to Stella. When she says a quiet “yes,” the doctor continues, “I’ll just step out for a while then. Keep her awake a while yet,” he tells Tanya, “we’re trying to help her out a bit, but otherwise—”

“I’m a doctor myself,” says Tanya, focused on the corner between the doctor and Stella; she’s had only a peripheral glimpse of Stella’s face, but it was enough for her to know she doesn’t want someone else to see her seeing it for the first time. “We’ll be all right.”

“I’ll be on my way,” the doctor says. He nods to Stella. “I presume you’re in good hands.”

Tanya turns towards Stella, who’s draped in a washed-out blue hospital gown, as she listens to the door shut.

“Don’t look so shocked,” Stella says quietly.

Half of Stella’s pale, fine face is as it’s always been, as it was the night she kissed Tanya; the other half is swollen, distorted, stitched at her eyebrow, marred at chin and cheekbone. The sort of injuries that Tanya’s prodded on dozens of victims, before the Belfast Strangler and probably after, and she sits abruptly in the chair that the doctor has just vacated. She puts her hand over her mouth, startled at her tears.

“It’s all right,” Stella says.

“I know,” Tanya says quietly. She can’t help crying, so she just continues talking as she does. “Just Rose—and now you—” She takes a long, shaky breath and looks over Stella again, more carefully this time. Then she asks, “What can’t I see?”

“The ribs,” Stella says. “One or two cracked, he got a few—a few kicks in. And my face, my jaw. The doctor can tell you. Minor zygomatic something. You’d understand it better than I.”

Tanya doesn’t say anything.

“He broke Anderson’s arm,” Stella continues.

“What happened?”

There’s a long pause, and Tanya watches the tiny hitches in Stella’s breathing.

“I’d rather not discuss it,” Stella says, “just now, if that’s all right. There’s a report.”

Tanya nods, wondering if she’ll read it.

“Will you come a little closer?” Stella says, as if amused.

Tanya looks up to watch her shifting over, the broken ribs perfectly clear in that movement. “Don’t,” she says, “it’s not necessary,” but Stella, with slight hissing groans, moves to the side of the bed to allow space for Tanya to sit beside her. Certainly there’s no choice now; Tanya resettles herself on the narrow cot, looking down at Stella’s face. There’s blood in her hair; Tanya doesn’t realize until she sees her own fingers that she’s holding Stella’s cheek, tracing gently around the bruises.

“It isn’t necessary,” Stella murmurs.

“What isn’t?”

Stella looks at her, and Tanya’s relieved to see that her gaze is focused. Stella waits, choosing her words carefully. Finally she starts, “The night I kissed you.”

“Yes?”

“I was … I fear I put pressure on you … that I used you. I regret that I … that I put you … in that position.” She’s talking slowly, but her eyes, pale and gleaming, stay locked to Tanya’s. “There’s no need for you to feel …”

Tanya waits for her to finish the sentence, but it seems to be done.

“You didn’t,” Tanya says quietly. “There was no pressure. You asked for what you wanted. I said no. It wasn’t …” She searches for the word. “It wasn’t complicated.”

“No?” says Stella.

“No. There’s no need for you to … to worry.”

Stella nods, slowly. Tanya feels the movement of Stella’s jaw beneath her palm. Paul Spector came close to destroying two women who amaze her; he’d done just that already to so many women, so many families, so many lives.

Stella is still studying her face, she realizes, looking for something.

“It occurs to me, too,” says Stella, “that those I’ve been close to in the course of this investigation have …” She swallows. “Anderson twice now.”

“You’ve been on the trail of a serial murderer,” says Tanya. “One might argue that it’s an occupational hazard.”

“They’ve been investigating my conduct. As primary investigator.”

“And what have they found?”

“I don’t know.”

“If they found something, you would know.”

“I’m not so sure of that.”

“I am,” says Tanya. “And I’ve worked here much longer than you.”

“Ah,” Stella says. She sounds almost amused, which is a relief to Tanya; the line of thought worries her. Then Stella continues. “Still, I admit that I’ve been glad you were gone.”

“Oh, have you?”

“I’d rather you were safe.”

Tanya looks at her, at the normally straight and now distended angles of her jaw and cheekbone.

“If you asked now,” Tanya says. Then she stops.

Stella says, “Yes?”

“I might say something different.”

To her surprise, Stella laughs lightly. Tanya is a little hurt until she notes that Stella’s gesturing to her lips, which are battered and split and bruised. “Perhaps,” she says, her tone dry again, “this isn’t quite the time.”

“Sorry,” says Tanya.

“But I’m glad to know,” Stella says. “For … for the future.”

“The future?”

“When he’s … when we’re done with … all of this.” 

Hearing the catch in her voice, Tanya leans forward, pressing her cheek to Stella’s good one. Stella’s skin is chalky and smells of antiseptic. She takes Stella’s hand and stays in that position, her hair absorbing some of Stella’s tears. She’s quiet about it; Tanya can only hear her crying because it’s right beside her ear.

“Even when he’s gone, he was still here,” says Stella, her voice now as flat as the sheets. “He’ll always—Rose—they’re always lost. Always destroyed.”

“Yes,” Tanya agrees, sitting up to look at her.

“You,” says Stella. “Rose. How—how do you raise daughters when he’s in the world?”

“The same way you solve murders, I suppose,” says Tanya after a minute. “It’s what I do, so I do it.”

“It’s different.”

“It is. But it isn’t. We live our lives.”

“I’m not certain I do,” Stella says carefully. “And nor does Sally Anne Spector.”

Tanya studies her. They’re still holding hands, and she runs her fingertips slowly across the tendons in Stella’s wrist.

“I don’t …” Stella says. “The room was full of people. Officers, solicitors. He did this there. This much, before anyone could stop him.”

For a second Tanya can picture it, and it swallows anything she might have said. Where were the others? Where was Burns, where was Eastwood? Was Paul Spector that quick, that powerful? Anderson was injured, Stella said; he would, of course, have tried to defend her.

Stella takes a breath that sounds difficult and seems to echo against the tile floor. She takes her time getting the words out. “I don’t think I knew he could do that to me.”

“Nor did I. It’s terrifying. I thought you invulnerable. All of us do.”

“Really,” says Stella.

“You knew that.”

Stella nods slowly, a twinge of pain flickering over her face. “I suppose I did.”

They’re not monitoring much besides Stella’s pulse, but Tanya is suddenly aware of the sound of it, the steady beeping alerts, the hums of hospital noises that surround them. She wonders how long Stella was alone with these injuries, if she’s slept.

“Shall I stay, then?” she says.

“Your girls?” Stella asks.

“As far as the family’s concerned, I’m still in London.”

“You were in London?”

“I called you from London.” Instead of seeing how Stella’s taking this information, Tanya settles into the uncomfortable armchair where the doctor was when she arrived, pulling it closer to the bed and taking Stella’s hand again. “All right?” she says.

“All right.” Tanya places her bag between chair and window; she leans back against the nasty plastic upholstery. “How was it?” Stella says. “London?”

Tanya looks at her. “Same as it always is.”

“Thank you.” Stella lifts their joined hands and brings Tanya’s against her lips, just for a second.

“Can you rest?” Tanya asks.

“Possibly.”

“You’ve earned it.” Stella’s eyes flick to the door too quickly. Tanya looks at her and says, as gently as she can, “I’m here.”

Stella sighs, but it’s a sigh that seems to loosen a few of the torn edges of her body, allow her to settle against the bed. Tanya feels their joined hands against the polyester sheets, the ridges of Stella’s knuckles. Equally gently, Stella says, “I know.”


End file.
